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Better than Frozen? Nursery rhymes channel fifth biggest on YouTube

If you've ever scoured the web looking for nursery rhymes to entertain your toddler you may well have already stumbled across the YouTube sensation that is Little Baby Bum. But as well as the bright animation and traditional songs that toddlers love – it's the length of the videos that make them a hit with parents.

The channel's most popular video, Wheels On The Bus (above) is a compilation of nursery rhymes that lasts a whopping 54 minutes - just the right amount of time to make a nice cup of tea and have a little sit down. Ahh...

The compilation has had more than 440m views since its release in August 2014 – putting it in the charts above Disney's official Frozen video for Let It Go – with 430m views since its release in December 2013.

In January 2015, Little Baby Bum was the fifth most popular channel on YouTube with about 2bn views.

"It’s gone absolutely potty: for whatever reason, it’s caught the imagination. I can’t quite say why. Long-form compilations are a sweet spot in our genre though," the channel's founder Derek Holder told the Guardian. "From a parental point of view, we know what a pain it is to keep pressing the ‘play’ button. If you’ve got one video that’s 50 or 60 minutes long, you can just press play and leave your child to watch it while you get something done."

But the channel is more than just a distraction tactic – one parent whose 23-month-old son has autism, praised the channel for developing his communication skills. "She said that he was ABCing and 123ing after watching the videos. It was a beautiful thing to receive. I don’t know if our videos had really done that or if it was a coincidence, but she thought it had," Derek said.

Do you watch nursery rhymes on YouTube with your little one? Let us know in the comments below.